You need to talk to a tax professional. There is a lot in the previous response that I would question, but I’m not an expert.
1) The penalties for not declaring your foreign held bank accounts and assets can be severe. They’re looking for people hiding millions, not the average expat, but expats still need to declare it. It’s not the same timing or the same form as your tax filing. There’s no downside to declaring it unless you ARE hiding a lot of money, so why would you not? But yes, it’s only necessary if you have more than $10,000 (total of all accounts) at ANY point during the year – not at year end.
2) Assuming you didn’t pay any social security over the past several years, you WILL have penalties because you will have to pay that. The deductions for foreign income don’t get you out of paying social security (nor the penalties).
I will PM you with who I had do my taxes. They’re reasonably priced and did a quick job of it.
